


if we forget slowly (better not to forget at all)

by superbayern



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: 2016-2017 F1 Season, 2017-2018 F1 Season, Apologetic Max, M/M, Red Bull Racing, Some Plot, i'm horrible at tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 03:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14926250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superbayern/pseuds/superbayern
Summary: Max first finds Jonathan in Barcelona, swallowing his warnings with bubbling champagne and ebullience from a first debut win. Max, Max, Max, he wants to string into words. Max, Max, Max, as the crowds chant—a Villeneuve, Senna, a Schumacher to win over the people. Max, Max, Max, he echoes, losing his edge in the wet kisses of a a wanton pacemaker.in which Max celebrates and makes amends through the highs and lows of the season with his long-suffering team manager.





	1. 2016

**Author's Note:**

> i really wasn't happy with the way this old thing came along and there's nil characterization or development in this fic but i like this pair for some reason. inspired by the fact that max seems like he genuinely sticks to jonathan in all the drivers briefings.
> 
> (2 parts)

Jonathan first tastes race champagne in its truest form on the lips of a jubilant Max as the Dutchman pressed fibers of his elation against him. Sloppy open-mouth kisses against his jugular, jaw, and ended at the side of his hip, as Jonathan lets himself be absorbed by the pulsing, burning errancy of 18 and of life.

 

He should remonstrate, pull away as Max hooks a leg around his figure in the sticky, linen sheets of humid Malaysia or burrows close in contrition after a disastrous Hungary. He’s beset by illness, Jonathan wants to plead under the scrutineering gaze of Marko and Christian, who perhaps suspect but stay silent. Illness that has settled in his lungs, such that he feels the aching pains of flying circles around the world on tracks demarcated by tires and cement barriers only soothed away by a wet mouth in secreted-away hotel suites.

 

Max first finds him in Barcelona, swallowing his warnings with bubbling champagne and ebullience from a first debut win. _Maxmaxmax,_ he wants to string into words. _Maxmaxmax_ , as the crowds chant —a Villeneuve, Senna, a Schumacher to win over the people. _Maxmaxmax_ , he echoes, sliding himself between slicked legs to completion.

 

Jonathan memorizes the points of ecstasy etched on every feature of Max. This, he reflects, could not be the brightest man of a generation of drivers—not with lack of talent, but because of his intractable, uncontrollable nature.

 

Albeit Max is gone with his passport and phone the next morning, race clothes shed beside the bed along with a note pasted onto his luggage to be flown priority to Munich. Jonathan feels no loss—he’s nearing half a century and familiar with the ways these things work.

 

Nevertheless, Christian eyes the bruising on Jonathan’s jaw at the post-race briefing at the factory and smiles a warning. “Has it really been so long since a win?” he asks to a thin smile from Jonathan.

 

Max lets the moment drop between them, reverting into an amiable professional enveloped by controversy and celebration as the season wears on. Jonathan could almost pass Catalunya as a blip in judgment if not for the moments in which Jonathan shakes Max into a more appropriate sitting position during strategy meetings and the Dutchman breathes softly on the pulse point of his offending hand—tripping over Jonathan’s feet during driver’s briefing as he worms into a seat next to him or leaving contrite gifts after harrying stewards meetings in which Jonathan negotiates away from penalties by the skin of his teeth.

 

It’s the contrite mask Max wears as Jonathan finds him in his hotel room after the Spa debacle, rummaging through Jonathan’s toiletry bag. “Looking for a hairbrush,” the Dutchman offers as an excuse, gesturing towards his matted hair.

 

In this poor hotel light, his canines still manage to flash and wink off of refracting beams, as Jonathan gathers his thoughts. “How did you even manage to get into this room?” he asks, surveying the rest of his belongings. Intact.

 

“The concierge found me quite convincing,” Max says flippantly, stepping closer until Jonathan can feel the rise and fall of his chest and the scent of his coriander body wash. “Besides, I had amends to make.”

 

Later, as Jonathan has him pinned against cold glass of the mirror with a hand around his mouth to prevent Christian next door from hearing, Max still has the presence of mind to lower his eyelashes and mouth at his cheek demurely in apology.  Jonathan struggles to think of a driver that could outstrip Max’s political game in that moment.

 

“I wasn’t sure what this was after Spain,” he murmurs into Max’s ear, wrapping a hand around his bared neck and snapping his hips. He uses his spare hand to wrap around Max, stroking in tandem with his thrusts as he takes bliss in the warmth—belonging, almost—before he comes, releasing at the last minute onto the flat plane of Max’s stomach.

 

They don’t speak as they clean up, eyes avoiding eyes as guilt digs into Jonathan for surpassing professional boundaries. Max steps into discarded cargo shorts and scuffed trainers on his way out.

 

“Does it have to be anything?” he tosses over a shoulder.

 

No, Jonathan supposed. It didn’t.


	2. 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought 2017 was a sad year for rbr but 2018 is just letting me down even more :,,(
> 
> anyways, max and jonathan's ups and downs continued (2017).

It’s a feeling of homecoming when Jonathan finds himself thigh to thigh with Max on the flight vacant of Daniel and Red Bull executives celebrating their tempestuous Baku win. He’d recused himself over the phone on his drive to the air terminal, citing the obligation to close his recently sold townhouse while palming a very much eager Max in the passenger seat of the rental.

 

As Jonathan finds, Max is paler in this car light despite the eight rounds of navigating the world under sun, bearing the mark of days cloistered away from the world in Monaco. He’s bonier too, Jonathan doesn’t bear mind in telling him. Max takes pleasure in retreating into a bratty mood after the disappointing DNF—no, no, he admits, there’s not much appetite left after the horrid string of races he’s had—no, he’d not like to stop for a bite before the chartered jet home—harder, faster would be enough, as Max drains away some of his bitterness in coming in his pants from the friction.

 

The surliness returns after they’ve boarded and Max has changed out of soiled pants. “If I could, I’d drive the RB13 into cement walls until the engine on the thing exploded,” he retorts sullenly after they’re into the sky and both on their phones. “That’s what I would have told the press.”

 

Jonathan eyes him warily. “For 25,000 euros?” he quips back.

 

Max gives his answer in the soft keens as he takes him deep, adding slick suction to somber sighs. It’s easy in those moments for Jonathan to lose himself, partially pulled down trainers exposing skin to the leather of the seat, warm cavernous pressure bearing down as he observes the obscene pop of Max coming up for breath. It takes effort to stay grounded as Max smears saliva and fluid across his chin and litters kisses across the planes of his hip.

 

 _Maxmaxmax_ , he wants to echo, bucking his hips into a tormented mouth. This is agony, in the limbo of coming onto the verge. _Maxmaxmax_ , he finally does muffle with a hand as he teeters off the edge, exhausted as Max wipes his mouth and rests his cheek against Jonathan’s clothed thigh.

 

“This sucks,” the Dutchman says ironically, closing impossibly long lashes without budging from his place. Reaching up with a hand, he pulls down Jonathan’s Red Bull polo that had ridden up in a gesture that fills him with a foreign ache.

 

And afterwards, he doesn’t have the breath or the will to nudge Max away for a long time.

 

As the season wears on, Max’s horrid record refuses to break—nearly as stubborn, Jonathan tells in between kisses, as Max himself. Max remains blase to most of it, blase through Hungary where things implode and Jonathan finds himself one of the few on the wrong side of a seemingly polarized garage—a devotion that rewards wet kisses in the night against every plane of Jonathan’s stubbled cheek.

 

It’s in Singapore though that a carefully reassembled peace in the garage and paddock at large shatters beyond recognition.

 

The first catalyst, Jonathan supposes, was Christian. A broken lock and a sprawled Max across the thigh as both sorted through paperwork. Jonathan isn’t sure whether to feign schoolboy humility or righteous professionalism, casting a surreptitious glance at the redness spreading across Max’s face.

 

At least everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, is the consolation from a flustered but significantly calmer Max—better to fake ignorance— just a good friendship between coworkers, an unfortunate moment to the outsider’s view, Max firmly explains at the Thursday table to steely gazes of Christian and Helmut.

 

“I’m sure Jos would take care of it if he knew” is the only phrase thrown out—and Max shifts from his innocence mask to one of such poignant penitence that Jonathan expects tears to begin flowing. He takes a moment to admire the show Max is putting on before putting forth his own excuses.

 

They emerge from the encounter with a stern rebuke, although Jonathan privately thinks they could hardly afford to fire another driver at the rate they were shifting through Toro Rosso drivers.

 

Nevertheless, the disquiet in his soul comes to a brimming points, and perhaps, it’s time for the remonstration he’s lacked the gut to do.

 

This is the type of thing that could ruin a career, he tells Max  later in the hotel, pushes Max’s burrowing into his chest away—invokes distance for the both of their sakes.

 

The second catalyst in a season that seems like one of the torrid nightmares he had as a child, is a wet Singapore crash ten seconds into the race. He hears the reverberations of a shunt in Max’s radio, the bitter disappointment of a squandered Singapore, compressed in his chest with the slightest of guilt.

 

Max collects Jonathan from the pit wall to see the stewards under the scrutiny of Christian—clasps a hand with the team principal and presses the other to the back of Jonathan’s neck.

 

Jonathan sees it for what it was after the monotony of another investigation. An invitation to hightail away from the track back to a dark, high-rise hotel. Max extends the offer for him—”You won’t join me?” he tosses out.

 

Now they’re on the street behind the motorhomes as the crowds roar for Lewis—Daniel—whoever, among milling press journalists and paddock personnel. Jonathan’s frozen, one step from the Red Bull motorhome. Now they’re back on a flight from a nightmare Hungary to Milton Keynes. Now they’re in back in wet Brazil after a _Senna_ drive—Max, he corrects when Jonathan brings it up. Now cardamom kisses in Barcelona after that first and only win.

 

 _Maxmaxmax_ , he wants to catch the Dutchman from the place where he’s frozen—smooth back mussed hair. Wants to take over the snapped chassis sitting in the garage and drive it into a dozen walls for Max. _Maxmaxmax_ , he wants to breath in the gaps of time between asphalt and rain-slicked rubber. Press the fibers of his body against the carbon fibre gaze of the Dutchman.

 

“Marginal things,” Max intones, picking up on his conflicted emotions. “Nothing much to do about the crash,” is his flippant take. Viewing the team manager’s silence for reluctance, he flags down a moped. “Then I’ll see you in Malaysia,” he calls over a shoulder without bothering to see where his words land.

 

“Marginal things,” Jonathan finds himself echoing hours later, gulping down the unfamiliar feeling of loss?—loneliness?—self-actualization he can’t quite control. After all, he thinks, it’s not anything at all.

 

 


End file.
